TubaOrNotTuba

From time to time, you will come across a nugget of information that needs to be filed. Advice to oneself if you will. This morning in a lecture I caught that we should try to make ourselves more interesting to ourselves. There’s a lot in that sentence. If you have ever tried to become self-educated that was actually your goal. If you have tried to explain something to others that is part of the goal. Go ahead. Take a few moments and try to remember what you did yesterday that would be of interest to you and to someone else. Got something? I am not inviting you to become a self-introspective person. Rather I just want you to know that knowledge is worthwhile. Even trivia. After all the program jeopardy is based on that one idea and look how far that is taken a whole group of people. There are so many ways to learn new things. If you’re a musical, learn a new song. If you are artistic, create something new. If you simply hang around the house, make sure that the house feels more comfortable than it did when you started. Tiny steps. When we had a dog, certain things were easier. Dogs are very easy to entertain. When you are in a classroom you have already an audience. But once you start living a semi solitary life, you have to make those moments for yourself and develop parameters to measure your own progress. Otherwise, long term, you cannot remain interesting. To yourself or to others. Am I going to learn to juggle? Probably not but the concept could be entertaining for myself and others. Just thoughts. When you stop thinking then you hit bottom.

On the Internet, you can find some oddly specific advice. Not always the right advice but you can be your own judge of that. As an example, how do you choose the right DNS server? Response is guess. Or, how do you win the competition for an orchestral chair? Responses there is no way to win. Go in with your best attitude and see what happens. Or, how do you tell if a plug is safe? An electrical plug I mean. There are variety of tests you can do but the correct one is try and see if you die. I do not make these up I just watch them. I am intrigued that there are people seeking advice on such a variety of subjects. The average person among us is never going to compete for and orchestral chair. Most of us have no idea what is meant by that term. And we take it on blind faith that electrical plugs will not kill us. How about something more practical. What is the best technique to win a bidding war when you were trying to buy a house. Despite those videos that suggest crafting a wonderful letter to play on the heartstrings of the seller, the proper answer is offer more money. Always. But, again I will leave you to do your own tests. I have rarely been in a bidding war to buy a house nor have I tried to get the lead chair in an orchestra. As for the best DNS server? That too is a crapshoot. I mean how will you know if you made the right choice. My plan is to ask an expert if ever I need to know at the answer. And I will try not to be seen as the expert by those around me. Too much time trying to explain why my answer is not the best one.

I feel obligated to put down memories of how things used to be done. Not that anybody really cares about those things because they’re from the past but I do my best. When I was much younger I worked during four different years in a small greenhouse business. Small is relative because we had seven houses in production. The largest in the city. Immigrants are things that people would buy. A lot of petunia ‘s and tomatoes. And for anyone who’s worked with bedding plants you know that your soil is more important than anything else, except for water. Our soil came in the back of a truck. All we knew is that he had come from a field where there were no cedar trees. Drive is apparently very important or so my boss told me. And my job after breaking up all the clumps was to sterilize the earth. We had a special box about the size of a bed that was heated. Electrically. And I would fill the box loosely and cover it with a sheet of plastic and turn on the heat and wait. Usually for about a day. Warm earth has an order. Not unpleasant but not something you want to have a kitchen table. A couple of days later after everything it cools back down I would take my soil bulk it up with peat Moss and perlite and a certain amount of fertilizer. I would then sift and shovel until the mass had become uniform. And then I would shovel embedding soil into small boxes that could come apart if too much water came in contact. That took the weekend early the next week the owners would fill small boxes with plants thousands and thousands of plants mainly growing from seeds. Petunia’s come in many colours and I learned to tell them apart by the leaves. It’s a trick when you work in a greenhouse to be able to tell the flowers apart long before their flowers. And then we would wait patiently adding water on the regular basis until the plants grew to a height that could entice customers. Carloads of customers. Remember if I did not sterilize the soil none of this would have happened so feel that I have a very important job. I only wish I had photos.

Right now, in our kitchen, there is a production of cookies. Perfect timing because I have already finished the last batch. Cookies have a short shelf life. In synchronicity I just finished watching a video about industrial flour. And I have questions which will not be answered. I neglected to question my grand father but how flower was produced in his time. I know part of the story because I have been in the fields, and I once rescued someone who fell into the pond where our local mill used to be. Just over there, in the woods. I imagine the flour was something produced on farms locally there is a legend of someone carrying a millstone home from the shore a long time ago. Anyhow the process of buying flour became a common local merchant thing where you went to the store I came back with a small package of flour. Or a large bag if you had a large family. I’ve seen photos of clothing that people produced from flower bags. Proof that a lot more bread was eaten back then. Or their families were larger. The documentary, from PBS, show me the flour has always been important to the economy and that some people made great fortunes supplying flour to others. The brand names live on. I also learned that the idea of eating cold breakfast cereal came about from a happy accident involving cannons in a laboratory. We also ate puffed wheat although had no idea of its noble origins. Our family considered them to be a way to get more sugar into your diet. It has been a long time since I ate a bowl of puffed wheat. No matter. You can still go to the store and buy a bag of flour so little has changed over the years. I cannot remember that my mother ever had to buy such large amounts of flour. I would have liked to put the question to my grandmother. It looks like mankind has always found ways to eat wheat. The first of the biscuits has been delivered to my hand and is now gone. If you want one you better get here soon.

My cup of coffee is from time to time invisible. Not all the time. It seems to be a factor of low light. I need to add that I have a coffee coloured cup of coffee that I filled with coffee and that I carry across the floor that is coffee coloured in low light. Magically the cup disappears from view. I know where it is because I can feel the weight and the temperature changes as I spill it on my hands and the odour but there is no way that I could tell you where it is other than that. Magical. There are some who add that a glass of water can have the same properties. I disagree. If your glass of water smells like coffee there’s other things going on. And I know the coffee and water are closely joint but they’re not identical. Happily milk does not disappear from view. Even when added to coffee. I must start experimenting with foods to see if they also disappear. No, I don’t want my food to disappear from view but I realized that it is a possibility given my propensity for leaving the lights off. It all comes down to trying to save the world because electricity requires fossil fuels in this part of the world and we want to get those out right. Time for us all to go solar. I am willing even though the price point is still blurry. If the nation wants me to have cheap electricity they should just simply give me array of solar panels. Yes, an array not a ray. This is my effort to confuse voice recognition. I learned recently that when I invoke the name Siri, someone in the room will speak to me. Not my fault. I should not randomly call out names right? And with that we’re hard on into the holidays. A neighbour just stopped by with a gift bag and of course I could not reciprocate. I hope my thoughts and wishes will be well received. And for the record we do have some snow on the ground. So, this is technically a white Christmas.

When you have a house, things fall apart. Small moments that require intervention. And, over the last few years I have had to step aside from the role of trying to figure out what can be fixed and what can’t. Happily, and easily my replacement is doing a wonderful job. A lot of it goes back to the first time we dealt with the hurricane and I have this visible memory of being on my hands and knees, on the deck, the next day, while the damages were repaired. I was keeping a watchful eye. Not much else. Too afraid to approach the edge because I knew that gravity was an enemy. And with that there’s been a change in roles here in the house. Things do need to be repaired. We have not had to cut down any trees but that is probably next. Our garden beds have been removed with the helpful neighbour. When the satellite dish came I left it to herself to design and implement a mounting system. Working well. Most recently, the sump pump decided that it would run but not stop. A small plastic what you may call it this seems to have gone away. And so, she went to the hardware store and purchase the pieces she needed to jury rig solution. If this continues, I am going to ask the university to enroll her in engineering and give her a diploma because that’s how it works. I think. My math skills were insufficient to ever be an engineering student so I’m guessing at this one. I am relieved to know that the sump pump is now back under control. And I can only wonder what will be next. I must note that she also learned how to replace electrical switches and odd fixtures. Sooner or later there will be other challenges and I will again step aside and let herself take care of it. Yes, I think this is a wonderful improvement. The natural progression.

In our oven, right now, there is a pie. A meat pie apparently. And we did not even have to make it. Somebody has moved into the area and makes meat pies. Now you might scoff but it didn’t used to be that way. A century ago, if you want a pie you had to make it. Could take all day since you had to heat the oven first. Is this what they mean by evolution? As well there is a plan afoot to make dog biscuits. Not for me because I do not eat dog biscuits but I’m sure we can find someone or something to handle that task period from what I’ve overheard the recipe will involve oatmeal and peanut butter and flour. Probably the same oven that we’re using to heat a pie. Anyhow, the wind continues to blow. For days now. No serious damage. Even the lights have stayed on here. Other provinces have not been as fortunate. I think we were lucky to get our hurricane when we did because it gave the utility company enough time to fix things before winter. And I guess that the other provinces will have to rethink their situation because they missed that window of opportunity. There were no visitors today except for someone in a big truck carrying parcels. He did not even come in to visit although he did ring the doorbell. Great service. No need to pay extra although I imagine that in the greater scheme of things, we’re paying the cost. Service rolled into the price. It also seems that we might soon sorted out our little dust up with our e-mail. A confirmation that the message we have sent was received. We may never know what actually happened. Instead, we will keep sending messages off, blindly something like a message in a bottle where you do not know where the tides will carry it.

Among the things they forgot to tell me in weather school is the tidbit that a bit of freezing rain stops the wind. Not literally. However, all day long my anemometer has been showing no reading because the little cups are stuck. We’ve done the obvious stuff I sent someone out with a stick to pretend it was a piñata to no avail I was considering waiting for warmer weather now I hear that we’re going to have rain. Please note the date. The wind will continue so things may stay frozen, but I’ll know better tomorrow. Not that it matters because nobody needs my wind reading to do their forecast. I live too far away from places where that matters. However, I did learn that the road beside our house is blocked by a falling tree. Yes, I did go to see and yes there is a tree down. Not a large tree and the lane is not used at this time of year because it goes to the fields below. As well, the man next door is away for the winter. What I do for see is that we will be hit by several heavy snowstorms and the tree will become just a large mound of snow and impossible passage. Not my lane and not my tree. This is the first time in the decade we’ve been here that something like this has happened and now I’m curious to see how long it will take before someone reacts. If it had fallen near electric lines someone would take care of it. And if there was any traffic to the fields below someone would take care of it. But right now, it’s just a tree that fell in the forest and no one heard it fall. Symbolic really. My guess is that the tree will probably serve as a place for small animals to shelter in place for the winter.

As this season takes on closer importance, I am struck by one thing that does not happen around here. Call it karaoke at your doorstep. I cannot speak to how it was in olden times but apparently people used to go from door to door singing festive music. Simple seasonal songs. Why, even I became involved at one point a long time ago. Everything comes down to culture and in my culture, we will go to church on Christmas Eve and sing those songs, but I had friends who believed it was their duty to bring joy to all their friends and neighbours. By standing in their driveway yelling out music in a major key. I will not go so far as to refer to it as musical, but we were young and what did we know. I can speak out now because some of those involved in my wander are now gone. No chance of being arrested for breaking the peace. We all learn those seasonal pieces of music. Songs that can be given to people with little musical background knowing that the major key will save them. I have actually found someone on YouTube who has reworked those same songs in minor keys, and I find the effort fascinating. Well, I sit around and sing those songs this year? That would surprise me and anyone else in the house. Will they play them in the background as a soundtrack to my life? Probably because there’s not much else available that everyone knows common songs for the common person. No need to go and learn voice techniques to sing Jingle Bells which I insist is not a seasonal song at all. And did you know that almost any child who has been in band club class class will be able to play these songs after several months of training? Wonderful. You may notice sarcasm in my voice. Remember keep it simple. No harmony involved. Altogether in unison let us sing in unison.

Have you ever heard the word dollop? Some use it as an inexact measurement, as in a dollop of salad dressing. I prefer to apply it to things that are more important. As an example a dollop of history. That is where you take a concept in particular in local history settings and try to figure out how to make it interesting for the edge average population. This afternoon, I learned more than I ever thought I wanted to know about a particular canal system in Ohio. Not something I map to visit but it’s good to know how they got her done and they did. Back in a time when you used pick and shovel and plow horse. I admit, I had never thought much about it but if your canal runs out of water it’s just a dry ditch. So for people that built canals they went to great lengths to find a source of water that would continue to flow through the year. A way of allowing your boat to move on. In this case we’re talking about transport boats. The equivalent of the modern truck. In the case of Ohio they moved everything they could. Food, stone, livestock, and on. Getting things from point A to point B in both an uphill and downhill direction. Because that was the other issue. No sense in digging canal when it road would do it. But when you have changes in elevation a canal with water can be an ideal tool. Who knows? Maybe we’ll make this into a tourism trip. Later on. I suspected Ohio, like here, has winter and a frozen canal is of little interest. For the record, there are no canals here where I live. We had the ocean em both could always get water. In fact, what we have now are lots of old wharves that need maintenance because if they’re not being used they decay. Something about all that water. Anyhow that’s my tiny lesson for today. A dollop of history if you will. And the next time I hear a reference to that particular canal I will have a much better mental image of what they’re talking about. Not just align on a map